by Kevin Ryan
There she was, running away from the vehicle, which exploded when she was perhaps thirty paces from it. Turning again, Adon prepared to dive down to retrieve her, then his craft shook under his feet. A flash told him the invisible shield was gone. He headed for the ground. Without the protective shield, a single shot would destroy the platform.
A moment later, he saw a green bolt race by him on his right and pulled the craft to the left. That movement saved his life, he was sure, because when the next bolt struck his vehicle, it hit the extreme right side. The platform shuddered and started tilting badly to the right. Whatever kept it in the air had been damaged, at least on that side.
Adon had to struggle to hold on as the craft was now almost completely on its side. Slowing his speed, he tried to lower the platform without flipping it. A series of green bolts flew all around him, and Adon decided he’d had enough. He jumped from the craft and landed hard on the ground. Hitting at an angle, he rolled to a stop and quickly found his feet again.
Remembering Bethe, he raced away, looking back when he judged it safe. His platform was still in the air, slowly spinning in place. Two Klingon vehicles approached and slammed it with weapons fire. It exploded brilliantly, and Adon regretted seeing the machine destroyed. His father had raced him with that device….
Adon felt grief and anger rise up inside him. That was one more thing Gurn would pay for.
“Are you done playing?” he heard a voice ask behind him. It was Bethe; she was carrying a mek’leth in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“Yes,” he said, drawing his own pistol and the sword that had been his father’s.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes, we attack the mine and I take Gurn’s miserable life.”
Bethe simply nodded. Adon headed for the rear of the mine at a run with Bethe by his side.
Fuller knew he had little choice but to order a direct assault on the mine. It would be tricky under ideal circumstances, and these circumstances were far from ideal with the Klingons able to strike them at will from the sky.
That was when he saw the first transporter beams. A few seconds later, six Klingon warriors appeared on the battlefield, and Fuller instantly understood: Captain Kirk had defeated the Klingon battle cruiser and returned to orbit. These were the Klingons from the crew of the Klingon ship that had been stranded by Duras. They had come to join the fight, yet it took every ounce of self-control that Fuller had to keep from shooting them while they stood in the open.
These Klingons were possibly the same ones that had killed his son. Perhaps the only thing that stayed his hand was that there were only six of them. Almost a hundred more waited on another continent. Even as he had that thought, there was another transporter beam and another six Klingons materialized. Before they had fully formed, the first group had their disruptors out and were firing at the Klingons in the air.
The crew of the D’k Tahg made no effort to find cover. They simply stood their ground and fired. Fuller watched as a single shot from a hand weapon tore through one of the vehicle’s shields and into the pilot, tearing a hole in the Klingon and knocking him off the craft, which spun away, crashing a few hundred yards in the distance.
The other Klingons were having similar success, their weapons making hit after hit on the pilots and craft … as if the shields didn’t exist. Fuller understood. The shields of the weapons platforms had been calibrated to allow the vehicle’s disruptor energy to pass through it. Unfortunately for the Klingon pilots, this door opened both ways and would allow disruptor beams in.
In less than five minutes, with less than thirty Klingons on the ground, the weapons platforms were almost all destroyed. Fuller saw that their own chances had just improved dramatically. Now, the only defenses for the mine would be the Klingons inside loyal to Duras.
That was when the mine doors opened and the Klingon warriors inside began to spill out. They were Duras’s last line of defense and he was using them. They had just made Fuller’s job even easier.
“Fuller to Enterprise.”
“Kirk here.”
“Good to hear your voice, Captain.”
“You too, Michael. Status?”
“The Klingons you transported over are helping. They’ve routed Duras’s forces’ flying craft and are engaging the forces from the mine.”
“Good, but we have a problem. Sensors show a power surge deep in the mine.”
“A kinetic explosive?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps Duras will turn it off now that his ride has disappeared.”
“Mister Spock’s analysis suggests that it can’t be simply turned off. It’s been collecting energy from the mine’s warp reactor for some time. It probably already has enough to destroy most if not all of the planet.”
“What can we do, sir?”
“Blow it up. Mister Scott is preparing a charge. I need you to destroy the device. The energy will still be released, but as heat and radiation so it won’t have the seismic effect.”
“Understood. Will there be time to get the team out?” Fuller asked, his voice perfectly calm.
“There’s a timer on the charge, but you’ll have to hurry to get it down the shaft and escape.”
There was a hum and Fuller saw the shimmer of transporter energy three meters from him. An ordinary duffel bag appeared on the ground. Picking it up and opening the bag’s zipper, Fuller saw that it held a photonic charge with a simple timer—though he realized that whatever happened next, he wouldn’t be needing the timer.
Fuller saw the possibilities before him. He could complete the objectives of this mission, at least most of them. And here was an opportunity to achieve something even more important, to take the kind of action that the times demanded.
“We’ll do it, Captain, but the Klingons can help. Can you have the crew of the D’k Tahg draw Duras’s forces away from the mine?” Fuller said.
“Yes,” Kirk said. “And, Michael, be careful. You’ll be able to find the kinetic device by its power readings, but you have to get up and down on your own. Transporters can’t reach that far underground.”
“Understood, Captain.” At the moment there were things it was better that Kirk did not know. There would be no need for transporters. For Fuller, this would be a one-way trip. It was the only way to be sure that the job was finished. Fuller found that the thought didn’t trouble him at all. “Fuller out.”
He collected his squad. Everyone was accounted for, though Greenberger’s team had lost three people. Eleven security officers were not nearly enough for an assault on a complex as big as the mine, but Fuller knew they would succeed. He had come too far and the work he had to do was too important to fail now.
* * *
Kirk had a bad feeling. They had lost three crewmen already, and he had given a nearly impossible task to eleven more. If that task failed, an entire planet would be destroyed—a planet full of good people, a planet that on a previous mission still more of his crew had sacrificed themselves to protect.
It was all troubling, but they still had a chance, a fairly good one. Kirk realized that something else was bothering him, something he’d heard in Michael Fuller’s voice.
He sounded like a man ready to die.
Chapter Twenty-six
SYSTEM 7348
FEDERATION SPACE
ADON WISHED HE STILL HAD his flying platform. Even at a full run, it was taking too long to get to the mine. Before he and Bethe made their way around to the side of the complex, he had seen that the Klingons inside had finally gone out to fight. That meant the humans no longer needed him to open the doors from the inside.
He trusted that his people and their Starfleet allies would prevail. Now his thought was only of Gurn. The clan leader was inside the mine, close. Adon could feel his blood boiling with its call for revenge. That the traitorous coward was walking around while his father lay in the ground was intolerable. Nothing would stand in the way of his vengeance now.
A blast p
assed over his head and exploded into a tree behind them. Bethe tugged at his arm while she fired back. Her weapon found its target and one of the Klingons from space fell. “Careful,” Bethe said, a rebuke in her voice. She was right, Adon would never taste his revenge if he became careless now.
Ducking back, he saw two Klingon guards standing by the small door that he had hoped would lead them inside. Adon whispered instructions to Bethe and raced across the open ground to the mine’s main shaft, firing at the guards as he ran. Before they could react, he vaulted over the guardrail and landed on the catwalk that ringed the shaft on this side. Just past the railing on the catwalk was a pit that looked endless and might as well have been.
Ducking his head down, Adon heard disruptor bolts hit the ground in front of his position, while other bolts passed over his head. The cover was good, but it would not last. He heard the guards talking and then their footsteps as they approached, thinking they had Adon cornered. He heard two shots from Bethe’s green-skin pistol and knew the guards had stepped into her path. He lifted his head to see them lying on the ground with Bethe standing nearby. She was shaking her head.
“Fools,” she said. Adon agreed; it was a wonder they had ever reached the stars. However, Adon had to assume that Duras’s men were not the best the Klingons had to offer.
But they were the people that Gurn had chosen as his allies.
Together, he and Bethe headed for the area the Klingons had been guarding. As he suspected, it was a small access door. Most of Duras and Gurn’s defenses were outside engaging Starfleet and Adon’s clan. And most of the soldiers left in the mine would be guarding the main entrances. The maintenance door was perfect.
There would be time enough to defeat all of their foes. For now, Adon needed to move quickly before Gurn ran like the coward he was, which would happen as soon as the clan leader realized that the battle was lost.
Inside, he and Bethe crept along quietly. In the distance, he saw a combined force of perhaps ten Klingons. It was a simple matter to avoid them. “It would take a growing season to search this whole place for Gurn,” Bethe said.
She was right, he needed to find the man quickly. “Come, we need someplace quiet,” he said to her, and led her to one room he was fairly certain no one would be occupying or watching now. In a few minutes, they were standing inside the computer simulation room where he had spent many hours. The last time he was here, he had been playing games with his friends, while his father was dying in the woods. Forcing down that thought, Adon made sure the door was closed and headed for the main computer terminal.
“Computer,” he said.
“What do you want?” it replied in its mechanical voice. It used the dialect of Adon’s people’s language that the Klingons spoke.
“Where is clan leader Gurn?”
After a brief pause the computer said, “His last communication was from the warp reactor room.”
Bethe was surprised. “How does it know?”
“The machines built by the green-skins and the Klingons watch everything. There are listening and viewing devices everywhere. The Orions and the Klingons apparently watched their people constantly.” Adon found the idea revolting, but from what he had seen of the Orions and the Klingons, he realized that there were good reasons for watching such people. Once again, Adon wondered how anyone of his people, even Gurn, could stand with such as them.
Before he left, Adon said, “Computer. Turn off all of your listening and watching devices.”
“Done,” the computer said. The devices could easily be turned back on, but Gurn would not think to do it. If nothing else, it would guarantee that Adon and Bethe reached the warp reactor undisturbed.
There were transport devices, called lifts, that Adon could have used to reach the reactor’s level, but he did not want anyone to know he was coming. He and Bethe made their way on foot, taking several minutes to reach the ladders that would take them to the warp reactor. Inside the long shaft, they quickly climbed down to the right level and came out near the reactor.
An invisible shield had operated in the corridor in front of the reactor, but that had been destroyed in the last battle. Adon was pleased to see that the heavy door at the entrance to the reactor was open. Gurn is leaving himself a way out, Adon realized.
Well, he had also left Adon a way in.
Adon and Bethe crept forward. When they were less than twenty paces from the door, Adon could see that several of Gurn’s clan were watching the door with weapons drawn. Interestingly, no Klingons were around. Adon guessed that the grand alliance between Gurn and Duras had not lasted long after Gurn had failed to provide the Klingon with the promised crystals.
The reactor was a good place to hide. There was only one way in, and if the door was closed, it would take heavy weapons and much time to break through. Adon considered racing in, weapon firing, but he knew that even if he got inside, there was a good chance that Gurn’s people would cut him down before he killed their clan leader.
He could feel Bethe, impatient, behind him. He lifted a hand to silence her and called out, “Gurn, you traitorous coward!”
Immediately, there was a hail of weapons fire. None of it came close to their position.
“Would you face me, the son of the man you murdered?” Adon called out. More weapons fire, this time closer as they tracked the source of his voice. When the weapons went quiet, there was the sound of voices from inside.
Adon and Bethe moved quietly to a new position. “Gurn, where are your allies, the Klingons?”
Silence this time and no weapons.
“They have abandoned you as they are trying to abandon this world. They tried to destroy it once; now they mean to finish the job.”
“You lie,” Gurn’s voice said from his hiding place.
“Ask your Klingon masters, if they will even speak with you now. They wish to destroy this world and blame the humans to start their war.”
“The humans tried to destroy us,” Gurn said, but the uncertainty was clear in his voice.
“Now they fight and die to defeat the Klingons. The fate of this planet will be decided soon, but either way you will not live to see the outcome,” Adon said. “People of Gurn’s clan. Your leader is a murderer who has aided those who even now labor to destroy us all. You will never see whatever he has promised you. You can still aid the fight against the Klingons, however, and seek whatever redemption you can find in the battle.”
More voices. Raised this time.
“I seek only to face Gurn. I have no quarrel with the rest of you—at least no quarrel that cannot wait.”
“Young Adon, your father was weak,” Gurn said, arrogant defiance in his voice. “Our people needed a leader, not a fool trapped in the ways of the past.”
The words burned his blood, but Adon kept his voice even. “If my father was weak, surely you are not afraid to accept the challenge of his young son. Let us see who is weak and who is strong.”
“You think me as great a fool as your father. You would cut me down in an instant.”
Adon didn’t hesitate. He took his pistol and tossed it toward the door. “I carry only my father’s mek’leth, the one which gave you the wound on your traitorous face. It still carries some of your blood. I would see it carry even more.”
Turning, Adon gave a thin smile to Bethe and stepped out into the open, holding the sword in front of him.
“No,” Bethe said. He raised his hand, gesturing for her to stay where she was. To his surprise, she did, but she watched carefully, keeping her pistol ready.
“Would you face me now?” Adon said.
He saw Gurn standing inside the reactor room, looking at him in frank amazement. Nearby, Gurn had ten of his clan. They all carried pistols, but Gurn’s was the only one drawn. Gurn considered him for a moment and smiled. “Young Adon. You are as big a fool as your father. You think your challenge means anything to me? Our old ways are finished. We have a new way of doing things, new ways to power.”
&
nbsp; With that, Gurn lifted his pistol and pointed it at Adon, who saw that he had miscalculated badly. He had been counting on Gurn’s arrogance and pride to win the day, but it looked as if his cowardly determination to preserve his pitiful life was his greatest motivator.
“You shall die no better than your father did,” Gurn said.
Adon could hear Bethe moving behind him. She did not have a shot at Gurn from her position, but she would soon—not soon enough to save Adon’s life, but soon enough to end Gurn’s soon after.
But before Gurn could fire, two of his clan grabbed his arms roughly, while a third took his pistol.
“What is this?” Gurn demanded.
“Today, the old ways will live a little longer. You will face the challenge of the son of Gorath,” one of Gurn’s lieutenants said. The surprised clan leader scanned the faces of his people and saw not a bit of support there.
“Draw your mek’leth, Gurn, I will not waste much time with you,” Adon said.
Adon enjoyed the moment of fear on Gurn’s face. Then, slowly, the man drew his own sword, which—to Adon’s knowledge—he had never drawn in battle.
Walking toward the clan leader, Adon raised his weapon. Gurn did the same, but slowly, fearfully. Adon would have preferred to kill the man while he was wearing his look of arrogance, but Adon would kill him now just the same—for if all choices were his to make, his father would still be alive.
When he was nearly in striking distance, Adon prepared himself for his final moment of revenge. But before he could strike, Gurn exploded in movement that was faster than Adon would have thought the man capable of. The clan leader’s swinging blade passed inches from Adon’s head, and even then only because his body pulled his head back before his mind saw the danger.
Then his sword was up and slashing at Gurn, who parried three blows before a fourth cut across his left hand. He cried out and swung his mek’leth, but Adon could see that the fight was nearly over. He sliced into the clan leader’s side, then again. Each time the blade found its mark, the man who had killed his father cried out.